The Narodniks and “Factional Coercion”

Published:Put PravdyNo. 81, May 9, 1914.

      Published according to the text inPut Pravdy.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1972,

      Moscow,Volume 20,

      pages286-288.Translated:Bernard Isaacs and The Late Joe FinebergTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      (2004).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

Themore the working-class movement develops and the
greater unity it shows in action, the louder do the intellectualist
grouplets, who are isolated from the masses, shout about “factionalism”,
“Pravdist contagion”, “factional blindness”, and so forth. These people
little suspect that in doing so they are issuing themselves with atestimonium paupertatis. What they take for a sort of natural
calamity, which can only be loudly bewailed, is really a sign of the
maturity and consistency of our working-class movement.

Nothinghas exposed the gross falsity of these intellectualist outcries
against the workers’ “factionalism” so much as the recent open elections
of the workers’ insurance representatives.

Takethe Narodnik newspaperMysl
Truda.[1]Afterall the insurance elections in
St. Petersburg are over, we read in the issue of that paper for April 20 a
ranting article which, with a serious air, argues that on no account must
there be any “yielding to the factional coercion [!] of the Pravdists”.

Factionalcoercion! What presumption on the part of this Narodnik paper
to make such a demagogic statement!

Justthink, reader. Open elections by the workers take place. The
workers hold an opinion poll among themselves as to the political trends of
the participants. The following unchallenged figures of the political
composition of the electors are published for general information:
Pravdists 37, liquidators 7, Narodniks 4, and unspecified 5. The workers,
naturally, elect a majority of Pravdists. (The minority, too, was
represented—the Mensheviks, not the liquidators.) And after this the
Narodnik newspaper makes an uproar about “factional coercion

Youare simply making yourselves look ridiculous, Narodnik
gentlemen. What you have done is to clearly demonstrate how utterlymeaninglessthat threadbarecliché“factionalism” is. You have overlooked two simple figures—37 and
4. Only 4 out of 53 worker electors were Narodniks, that is, a mere 7
per cent. Apparently, the Narodniks think the workers ought to elect their
representatives not by a majority vote, but by aminority. To
please the Narodniks, 37 worker electors should have been equated with
4. Thirty-seven equals four—that, strictly speaking, is what the good
“non-factional” Narodniks are trying to din into the workers. No wonder
the workers cannot make head or tail of this profound Narodnik wisdom.

Thereis a limit to everything, “non-factional” Narodniks. By
shouting about the “factional coercion”, of the majority when you have 4
electors out of 53 you are only proving one thing, namely, that you do not
respect the will of the majority, that in raving against “factionalism”
you are trying tothwart the will of the vast majority of the
workers. You, and you alone, are actually trying to practice coercion
of the overwhelming majority by an insignificant minority.

Bypursuing the paltry and unprincipled policy of a coterie that is
isolated from the masses, you, with your ranting against “factional
coercion”, are trying to act upon the workers’ nerves and toextortfrom them, by this unbecoming trick, satisfaction of your
parochial interests. If there is any “factionalism” of the worst possible
kind, it is exemplified in the behaviour of the liquidator and Narodnik
circles, who are trying to thwart the will of the workers.

Wesee the same picture in connection with the insurance elections in
so big a centre asRiga.

Ameeting of the sick benefit societies is held to nominate candidates
for the Gubernia Insurance Board. Twenty-one sick benefit societies are
represented. There is a sharp struggle of political trends. On one
side—the liquidators, Narodniks, non-party people and several trade
unions. On the other—the Pravdists. Lots of speakers from both sides take
the floor. In the end the Pravdist list of candidates receives 44 votes,
while the bloc of all the others receives 20. (These figures are from the
same source—MyslTrudaNo. 2.) The Pravdists thus have a majority of over
two-thirds.

Afterthis the Narodniks again start their plaint about
“factionalism” and “factional coercion”.

Noticethe word-juggling. The Narodniks, as we know, have never been asectionof Social-Democracy. The Narodniks and the
Social-Democrats have always beentwoseparateparties,
with programmes, tactics and organisations of their own. The struggle
between the Social-Democrats and the Narodniks is a struggle between
politicalparties, not a struggle between sections of a
party. “Factionalism” has nothing to do with it.

Itis clear enough that in vociferating against “factionalism” the
liquidators and “conciliators” are merely playing into the hands of theenemiesof the workers’ party, are merely sowing chaos and
disunity, are confusing terms, and bamboozling the workers.

Theoutcry against “factionalism” has become a system. The enemies of
the Marxists are deliberately using it to bamboozle the workers. When some
decision adopted by the workers is not to the liking of some intellectual
or group of intellectuals, the outcry is raised, “Help! ‘Factionalism’!
Help! ‘Factional coercion’!”

Youwill astonish nobody with that sort of thing, gentlemen. When the
splitter and liberal, F. D., inSevernaya Likvidatorskaya
Gazeta[2]calls God to witness in every other line that he is for
“unity”; when Trotsky in his super-intellectual highbrow mouthpiece rants
about “factional emancipation”; when the petty-bourgeois quasi-socialists
ofMysl Trudaasseverate that they stand for unity, the workers
tell them: whoever stands for true unity of the working-class movement must
submit to the majority of the class-conscious workers and not dare oppose
the Marxist programme and Marxist tactics.

[1]SeeNote 39.

[2]SeeNote 20.